A #marxist and #Lacanian analysis of the ideological and political responses to the terror attacks on #september 11, 2001, Žižek's study incorporates various psychoanalytic, postmodernist, biopolitical, Christian, and universalist influences into a Marxist dialectical framework.

Zizek speaks on this topic beautifully in his 2002 analysis titled, "Welcome to the Desert of the Real." In this discussion, however, Žižek gave his speech today on a wide range of topics that included his views on 9/11 and the movies produced in their honor there after.

Žižek has argued that Global #capitalism and Fundamentalism are two parts of the same whole: ultimately, their opposition in political and everyday discourses represents a false ideological conflict in both the Marxian and psychoanalytic senses.

Žižek explains how - in his view - the fundamentalist terrorist plays an analogous symbolic role: the excluded "other" whose alien presence legitimizes measures of internal discipline and/or corruption.

Zizek claims that this expresses that American's received what they secretly desired, i.e., the ultimate spectacular experience. Creating the perception of a purely external threat allowed the system of global capitalism to go essentially unchallenged, functioning to indefinitely defer discussion about alternative socioeconomic futures.

With the only "other" alternatives to global capitalism being a renewed form of #socialism because the "others" of #capitalism (those excluded from capitalism's benefits) are vast, even though they are all formally extended the promise of liberal rights.

In Zizek's view, the United States claims to stand for "democratic" rights and principles, while at the same time, suspended these rights for its citizens, even legitimized torture, in order to fight "the war on terror.”

Through a psychoanalytical lens this means, rather than seeing these as real exception to the democratic process, Žižek identifies them as "central tendencies" that occur in #liberal #democracy, a system inherently susceptible to corruption and unable to universalize its own rights.

Furthermore, changing conditions of and in war - further erode any distinctions that could be made between a state of war - or exception and a state of peace - central distinctions in the democratic ideology.

Zizek believes that the #democraticdebates system has a habitual nature to always be generating new states of emergency to justify the negation of its ethical principles. Further, he posits that the future of emancipatory politics cannot be contained within a liberal democratic framework, which is designed to account for notions of human rights, the rule of law, and constitutionality of actions taken by the government.

Zizek focuses his critique on two productions released to mark the 5th anniversary of 9/11: Paul Greengrass's United 93 and Oliver Stone's World Trade Center. For Žižek, both try to be as anti-Hollywood as possible by focusing on the "courage of ordinary people, with no glamorous stars, no special effects, no grandiloquent heroic gestures, just a terse realistic depiction of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances."

"There is undoubtedly a touch of authenticity in the films - recall how the large majority of critics unanimously praised the film's avoiding of sensationalism, its sober and restrained style. It is this very touch of authenticity that should make us suspicious - we should immediately ask ourselves what ideological purposes it serves," Zizek pondered.

#psychology #socialmedia #sociology #psychoanalyst #zizek #lecture #education